OMAEC

What does OMAEC stand for?

Organisation Mondiale des Anciens et Anciennes Élèves de l'Enseignement Catholique (World Organisation of Pupils of Catholic Education) Website: http://www.omaec.org/

There are two hundred and fifty thousand Catholic schools throughout the world. Not only do they teach their pupils, but they also give them a Christian education and enable them to discern the meaning of their lives in the light of the Gospel. At least, in countries where other faiths are dominant, they aim to develop them into informed and tolerant men and women.

Their Former Pupils number one hundred and fifty million! Some of them are grouped, even for more than a century, in Associations which claim to have three aims:

• 1.Supporting the influence of Catholic schools. Upholding, when necessary, their operative freedom. Taking part in their educational communities, Supporting them on moral, financial and material standpoints.
• 2. Setting up a network of friendship, mutual assistance and solidarity within each Association and between the members of the various Associations.
• 3. Putting Christian values and the great humanist principles into practice in the life of each member, in society, in the nation, and also on the international scene, working in the service of the human community, for the dignity of men and women and for the development of the individual.

So, Former Pupils of Catholic schools enlist in various fields, everywhere in the world, and their activities are manifold.

In order to reach their goals, the Former Pupils' Associations have felt the need to meet and to federate. Either they are established around a teaching congregation or within the boundaries of a country or a region. Thus, numerous groups of Associations appeared, each one having its own spirituality and its own lines of action.

The combination of these world unions and of these national confederacies constitutes OMAEC, the World Organisation of Former Pupils of Catholic Education.

OMAEC is managed by an International Board, elected for three years. This Board is appointed from an Executive Council which is composed of representatives of all the member bodies. The Council holds a meeting once a year. The World Congress takes place every three years. It deals with a current topic.

Continental branches have been set up or are foreseen.

A Youth branch has its own life. OMAEC is charged with the official representation of the Former Pupils to the Holy See. Its teams take part, as a Non Governmental Organisation, in the works and debates of the main international bodies established by the United Nations. They bring a Christian point of view to the big problems of the present time.